Callamard hit at Saudi hit squad, Patel under fire for praising khalifis
Agnes Callamard, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executionsreferred in a recent tweet to a Saudi hit squad to target dissidents. She said: SaudiArabia deployed a mysterious security team of ten men to Norway. A possible target: Iyad Elbaghdadi. The Norwegian authorities stopped it. A lawsuit filed in Canada last August said that a Saudi hit squad had traveled to Canada. This time, the target was Saad Aljabri, a former top Saudi intelligence official who had worked closely with U.S. officials on counterterrorism in the past.
The European Saudi Orgnisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) has raised serious concerns about one of the oldest and most senior religious leaders in Saudi jails. Sheikh Hussain Al Radhi has been in jail since 2016 without charge. He is suffering various ailments linked to his old age, especially heart problems. Among the most “serious” crimes he is accused of is criticism in his sermons of the Saudi war on Yemen and condemnation of the execution of Sheikh Nimr Al Nimr.
A Saudi court has sentenced a prominent Saudi-American medical doctor to six years in prison on December 8, 2020 on vague charges mostly linked to his peaceful political views and expression, Human Rights Watch and The Freedom Initiative said. Saudi authorities have banned Dr. Walid Fitaihi, 56, from travel since November 2017, along with seven members of his family, all of whom are also US citizens. The Saudi government has also frozen his family’s assets since 2017. Dr. Fitaihi remains free pending appeal. “Saudi authorities’ railroading of Dr. Walid Fitaihi under broad charges shows that the government has no intention of loosening its clampdown on peaceful critics,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The message to Saudi citizens is clearly that any expressed view that contradicts official Saudi domestic or foreign policy will lead straight to prison.”
On 9th December native Bahraini orator Salman al-Arab was detained for a week pending further investigation. He was arrested for his religious views and objective assessment of events and personalities who existed in the early days of Islam. Political prisoner Ayoub Adel Ahmad suffers a broken bone that has not healed for years. Khalifi torturers refuse to provide him with medical care and is left behind bars to suffer in silence. Scabies is spreading among the political prisoners at the notorious Jau Prison. Four years ago almost half of its inmates were infected with the disease. Yesterday Cell No 8 at Bloc 14 was used to isolate the most difficult cases
As the pressures on the khalifi dictators to release native Bahraini prisoners intensify Maryam Al Khawaja, a renowned human rights activist tweeted: My father, a prisoner of conscience & human rights defender AbdulHadi AlKhawaja, and others with him are facing increased restrictions, now with a the number they can call limited to 5. In effect, my father has to choose which of his 3 daughters abroad he can call.
Lewis Hamilton, the world’s car race champion said he had been moved by a letter from the son of a man facing the death penalty in Bahrain and assured activists that he would not let human rights issues go unnoticed. Campaigners sent letters to the seven-times Formula One world champion last month before the first of two grand prix races in Bahrain. Hamilton had said then that he needed time to digest the content. Hamilton said he had hoped to meet Bahrain’s Crown Prince but testing positive for COVID-19 had ruled that out. It has given him more time to read the letters, however. “Ultimately, it isn’t necessarily my responsibility to speak out on the places that I don’t know everything about but I think we together always have to work to push for change and improvements,” he said. “I think the saddest thing for me was that there is a young man on death row and it’s not clear… when his son writes me a letter, that really hits home. All lives matter. I think there’s definitely work to be done in the background. “I definitely won’t let it go unnoticed,” he added.
UK’s Home Secretary is facing criticism after touring a notorious Bahrain police station where activists have been tortured. Priti Patel praised the khalif state dictators while she was there for its “progress to achieve common interests”. Human rights groups and those who have been mistreated at the General Directorate of Muharraq Governorate Police condemned the visit. One democracy activist who was granted asylum in the UK after revealing his torture at the station told The Independent newspaper of his frustration seeing Patel photographed there. Yusuf al Jamri told the newspaper: “I can’t understand why Priti Patel would pay a state visit to the same police station, flanked by the people who have allowed my torturers to walk free. “How can the Home Office accept that I was tortured at this site, then send the Home Secretary there for a photo opportunity?”
Bahrain Freedom Movement
16th December 2020 (info@vob.org, www.vob.org)